Well… it seems the NAO didn’t do a proper job with its original estimates. Here are numbers from a 1997 Congressional Budget Office analysis.

That’s a unit flyaway cost of $70 mil and unit acquisition cost of ~$110 mil.

Current estimate is $80-85 mil flyaway and unit acquisition cost ~$150 mil.

(^Adjusted for inflation.)

The UK NAO was comparing the numbers that LM and the JPO delivered to the British MOD circa 2001 versus what they are being asked now (well two years ago) for the F-35B…

Eurofighter gmbh don’t want to end with a whimper, so what could they do to the Typhoon to keep it relevant for decades to come?

I ask the question because Airbus reference an enhanced Typhoon in their FCAS planning and BAE are now talking about how you can apply lessons learned during the testing of Taranis to Typhoon.

Lets assume the systems are pretty advanced anyway, so you are talking about sharing development of sensors and communications equipment between Typhoon and UCAVS, engines and critically structure.

CFT´s, new sensors, new comms and new weapons.
For the next decade to a decade and a half, the new radar, Meteor, Spear 3 and Storm Shadow (and its MLU) will make the aircraft relevant, after that use it in suport of a UCAV.

good information.

so for comparison sake

Internal Fuel (Liters)

Mirage 2000 about 3900 feeding one engine
F-16 about 4000 feeding one engine (not sure which variant, just saw it on LM site)
MiG-29 4300 feeding two engines
Rafale 4700 feeding two engines
MiG-29KM 5720 feeding two engines
F-35C 8900 feeding one engine

The number of engines is irrelevant, the thrust produced versus the SFC and the overall drag of the design are the key points.

Potential first generation UCAV are not a replacement for manned fighter.

For the foreseable future UCAV´s might not be a complete replacement for the all the manned fast jet fleets, but almost surely will be a replacement for part of those fleets.

So Europe will ether build its own manned 5-6 gen fighters are buy from US or do a joint development with US.

Almost certainly true, and that will happen when their fleets of Phoons/Rafale´s/Gripens end their airframes life, thats midle thirties, beggining of the fourties… At least two decades from now. That or Russia goes into “overdrive mode”.

Military staff are not the ones unhappy here it is the governments that were sold eurofighter, rafale programs based upon them securing large export sales that were only partially realized. I do not see those who would have to approve the immense amount of funds for a new European manned fighter being willing to do so if the expected outcome is the same as the prior generation.

Siddar, a) i am actually old enough to have followed the three European programs from the beggining, and while Dassault did indeed promised large external sales, that was not one of the main drivers of the Gripen and FEFA programs (not after the “massive” sales of the Panavia MRCA…), and the French have already stated that they are not going to “chaff” their own military aerospace industry, b) the government officials that were “sold Eurofighter and Rafale programs” are (great big chunk of them) dead or out of government jobs for the best part of (at least) a decade and a half, so no, the idea that today´s Western European Governments officials might have a massive grudge over their own national programs is a bit far fetched. On the other hand today´s European government official´s might have noticed that a certain American led program is “six years late” and its “unit cost doubled”, and before anyone starts, those words are not mine, they are from the UK NAO and were printed last year.
On the “immense amount of funds” bit, in case no one noticed, the budget of the biggest European MODs are entirely comparable with the ones from places like Japan, South Korea and even Russia… so, yeah… And just to finish this discussion, there are TWO European UCAV prototypes flying today!

So things will have to be done differently.

I really hope that they dont stick a gigantic fan in the midle of whatever BAE/Dassault/Airbus/SAAB/Leonardo end up building. Just kidding…

Cheers

Still, the record stands, and there is one with a 1TM of payload, is clear this record has practical implications.

The P-42, was striped of literaly everything that was not needed to fly the thing and (barely) to maintain the pilot alive, the entire avionics suite, including the radar, the mission computers, every single piece of operational kit, the fins, the tailboom, the wing tip launch rails were removed, the paint was taken out, it received a new (lighter) radome, on top of that the two engines were twiked to produce another ton of thrust each. The aircraft was so light that the thrust-to-weight ratio was almost 2:1, this means that the clean weight of the P-42 would be on “Mig-29land”.
http://www.angelfire.com/ab4/airplanes/Sukhoi/Record_Flanker/P42.html

The P-42 was has removed from an operational Flanker that Sukhoi could manage, and still be able to fly.

Will Europe spend 40 billion to develop a gen 5 aircraft while US is working on a gen 6 aircraft at the same time?

The French official plans are publicly available (ask Hallowene for the PDF, if you are interested) and last time i´ve checked there are two European UCAV prototype´s flying. Why do you believe that somehow Western Europe is going to build a “JSF” instead of a UCAV, an optionaly manned system or something manned more advanced that the F-22/F-35 circa 2040´s is anyone´s guess. The first Raptor flew in 1996.
And what´s a “gen 6 aircraft”? A manned aircraft, a development of the F-35, a UCAV, new weapons and sensors on the F-22 and F-35 fleet? Because the Pentagon is still checking what it wants.

I don’t think they are very happy with the last generation where they built gen 4 aircraft while US built gen 5 ones.

You dont think based on what? Can you point consistent declarations of European military staff stating such?
Because its incredibly easy to find the exact oposite, from pilots, to air staff, etc, stating that they are over the moon with their Rafale´s, Gripen´s and Phoon´s.

Advanced structural composites, not the less sophisticated laminations.

Laminations?
Can you actually provide any public disclosed document that proves that the CFRP single piece wing box (i do imagine that you are specificaly mentioning the Mitsubishi built wing´s) of the F-2 is either lighter or stiffer (or both) by sqm than the CFRP single piece wing box of the Rafale?

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https://www.dassaultfalcon.com/PublishingImages/IMAGES/Media-center/Media-gallery/Publications/Focus4.pdf